


When the Tobacco Flakes Fall

by Bruton, hydrviolence



Category: 1984 - George Orwell
Genre: (only once though and its at the end of the fic), A lot of talking, Chinese to English, F/F, Kissing, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 06:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bruton/pseuds/Bruton, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrviolence/pseuds/hydrviolence
Summary: This is a translation (from Chinese to English) of a fanfic by hydrviolence, which can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461490And since the original fanfic didn't have a summary, I'm gonna give a quick and short one right here:Julia and Katharine meet in an ominous dark place, and talk about things. Then they kiss.





	When the Tobacco Flakes Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [烟丝落地](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461490) by [hydrviolence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrviolence/pseuds/hydrviolence). 



> If you were expecting some lovey-dovey stuff, then you can leave now. The closest thing to romantic in this fic is a single kiss.
> 
> Some of the translations may seem weird, and if you're a fluent Chinese speaker that knows how to express something in the fic more concisely, please tell me in a comment.
> 
> And if you're waiting for me to write on Champions, don't. That's pretty much abandoned at this point; I haven't even touched Pokemon in months.

Fandom: 1984

Pairing: Julia/Katharine

They were in a dark place. 

But when the eyes got used to it, the dark felt washed away. The color had somewhat faded, no longer a blindfold, a wall in front of them. In this kind of place, darkness isn’t the cold, hard steel filling up the cells, instead the shadows and smoke in the air. Thick ink mixed into clear water, spreading out like silk, diluting the darkness emanated.

Silhouettes were in the dark as well, mixing with shadows. Looking from afar, they may be easily mistaken as dense penumbrae. Only when one walks closer does one realize that those are people, humans materializing. There were, in fact, other people here, just scarcely met with.

Julia was still wearing her overalls. Putting her hands into her pockets, she walked forward. Of course, in this sort of place, it’s hard to determine what is “forward”; No ups and downs in the ground, no vegetation, no infrastructure, no directional marks. From one piece of boundless black flat ground and, on it, a space consisting of never-ending darkness, void of forward or backward, never mind edge or center. People scattered on this plain were like particles in Brownian movement.

Julia hoped she was holding a wrench. At this particular moment she wanted to forcefully strike something. But, there is no wrench. Even if there was a wrench, there was nothing to strike, nothing even slightly interesting to do. All she could do was put her hands into her pockets and make a fist. Then, her eyes noticed a flicker of bright light. Indeed a flicker, floating in mid-air, hovering in the dark, a hint of orange in the red. When Julia stared at it, said flicker started to die down, making her think it was going to go out. When she was sure that it was gone and turned into darkness, that small flicker lit up again.

A wisp. A wisp floating in a realm of ghosts, how laughable, Julia thought. Though something to guess at and letting her imagination run wild did give her new energy. However she already deduced that the flicker was nothing more than someone having a cigarette to smoke. Or, a ghost was smoking. 

Using that flicker as a lighthouse, Julia went full steam ahead, arriving at a harbour named Katharine. 

“Hello!” Julia greeted, also scanning the smoker. It was a slender woman, with pale blonde hair, a pale white face, carrying a cigarette in the mouth. Her facial expression placed somewhere between empty and daydreaming. The actual emotion depends on if the cigarette is lit or not. She puffed on the cigarette and it lit up. 

“Hey.” The blonde maintained her daydreaming expression.

“What is this place we’re in?” Julia continued to ask.

“A rabbit hole, or a mouse hole, acorn hole, cavity, some black dome. Or maybe this is the other side of the Moon, that people on Earth cannot see. However, taking this place’s brightness into account, it’s always this dark with no sunlight. Therefore, this should be considered as the side of the Moon not facing the Sun, the dark side. Since there’s no sunlight here, even if we were facing the Earth, we are still invisible to them. Despite literally facing them.” 

Julia’s spirits were raised; these was the most interesting words she had heard in a good while. “They all say that this is the realm after death. The purgatory, the underworld, or Hell. We are all deceased.” 

“You should believe their answers.” The cigarette butt dimmed, and the blonde’s expression changed back to empty and sluggish. 

“But that saying is boring.” Julia paused, seeing the cigarette dimming and relighting, “have you always been standing here?” 

“Yes.”

“Don’t you get bored?” 

“Certainly. It appears the same for wandering. Staying at one point makes me think of that one pin on the map, once the map is pulled off, I have roamed the world.” 

“Why not a lighthouse?” Julia remains the questioner.

“What?”

“Lighthouse. Why do you see yourself as a pin, not a lighthouse?”

“Because I’m not a lighthouse.” The blonde breathed in, relighting the cigarette, giving her that dreamy facade.

“Have you seen one?”

“No. Have you?”

“Me neither. Sometimes I think that I’ve seen one, but realize that it may very well be a fake memory. Lighthouses release light to the outside, but its interiors are black. Like this place, darkness everywhere. I remember us eating sausages in the dark, preparing a kettle of tea, talking about Samson(1). Fabricated memories come from a story which has had its existence wiped. A deleted story disguises as a memory with its plot and setting in the brain of a reader. The story was wiped, but the fake plot manages to pretend as an actual event and survives.” 

Both women went silent, thinking of how the darkness would taste like. At last, the one initiating the conversation is still Julia, “How did you get here?” 

“A bomb.” A small shadow made the blonde’s face seem overcasted, “A bomb landed, throwing me up with the impact, and I fell onto the ground. The ground threw me up again, and got me here. You?”

“Miniluv.” Julia answered.

The blonde looked at Julia’s face. Julia feels that she is checking out the scars on her face, perhaps with some pity or not. The empty facade disappeared, and she came out of her daydream, showing a communicable face. 

“Want a cig?” She asked Julia.

“Sure.”

“How should I address you?” She asked, taking out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket in the process.

“Call me Julia. You?” “Katharine.” Katharine answered while opening the pack, taking one cigarette out and handing it to Julia. “Don’t hold it straight, the tobacco flakes will drop.”

Julia takes the cigarette. 

Katharine takes out a match from her matchbox, lights it and lights Julia’s cigarette.

Julia breathed in deep, and slowly exhaled the smoke after a while. “Finally, the long-awaited taste of tobacco. This poor tobacco, me missing its taste, who would’ve thought?” 

“I have a lot of cigarettes.” Katharine replaced the cigarette pack into her pocket. “Only one pack, but it never empties. Just like the matchbox, always filled with matches to the brim. After I got here, I haven’t stopped smoking, to the point where I feel the smoke filling the body, even displacing the body; the smoke doesn’t just exit from the lips and nostrils, it even leaves from the eyes and ears. No matter how many are used, there’s always cigarettes or matches in the boxes. Some magic trick that I can’t understand. Must be something with this place.”

“My chocolate is like this too, undepletable.” Julia pulled out a bar of chocolate from her pocket, pulled off the wrapper, and took off a piece, handing it to Katharine. “Eat as much as you want. After a while it’ll just regenerate, like this never happened.”

Katharine looked at the chocolate. One hand holding the cigarette, the other’s thumb and index finger putting it out. She threw away the cigarette, flicked away the ash on her fingers, and received the chocolate.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Julia asked. 

“Hurt?” 

“Your fingertips. Don’t they hurt?” 

“I don’t feel it.” Katharine put the chocolate in her mouth, looking at her fingertips, puzzled. “I used to be able to feel pain. It was terrible. I remember how much it hurt when I scorched my fingers. It was when I was young, don’t remember when. My mom held me, looking at the copper kettle on the stove. When the water boiled, the kettle bellowed. Looking at it, I thought it was some cub that got hurt. I wanted to comfort it, so I put my hand out to pat it.”

“That must’ve hurt bad.” 

“Of course. Hurt a hundred times worse than being pricked by a hedgehog. I bellowed with the kettle, boiling water running down the side of the kettle, tears running down the side of the face. My mother hugged me tightly and comforted me. In her embrace, I felt her body getting tighter with her anxiousness. When I got hurt, she felt sorrow. I stopped crying, and her body relaxed.” Katharine sucked on the chocolate, “this is good stuff.” 

“Indeed. You tasted it.” 

“I had this kind of chocolate once, that was also in my childhood. It was an afternoon, Mother and I were in some room. I don’t remember if it was the room we lived in, or some room I lived in later on. We were sitting next to each other, facing a wall with a window on it. The greyish white wallpaper was peeling off in pieces. The window was placed quite high, I had to raise my head to look up at it. The window frame was metal, with dark green paint on it which was similarly peeling off. The places where the wallpaper peeled off showed dark metal and reddish rust marks. My mother and I sat next to each other, swirling the chocolate she brought home in our mouths. A piece for me, and a piece for her. In the peeling paint window frame, was the sky outside, where clouds were moving forward in queues. We just sat, eating our chocolate, looking at the sky outside. The wallpaper was peeling off, but we didn’t say anything, and there wasn’t a need to say something. It was then that I thought I knew what ‘happiness’ meant. The only time where I felt happy.” 

“Then?”

“Back then, I was too young and there were merely disconnected memories and random scenes. Not sure which happened first and which happened after. Now, according to logical thinking listing the memories in order, what happened afterwards, was that my mother disappeared. She left the house and never came back. At that time, this always happened; one disappears, one is gone and no longer exists. I waited for her at home, waiting, waiting and more waiting. I walked near the wall, spinned around in the room, and when my fingers touched the wall I would feel safe. The copper kettle lay quietly in the corner of the wall, it felt scared. When I got tired, I got onto the bed, pulled over the covers, but couldn’t fall asleep. So I tugged the covers under the bed, in the dark and soot, covered by the dark, soot and my covers. Whenever I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, I would run to the door, hoping it was my mother that would open the door and come in. The door never opened, and the footsteps grew distant. I found my mother’s clothes which still had her smell on it. I held the clothes in my embrace, smelling her smell, sitting on the floor near the door. The floor was paved with porcelain tiles, all cracked, none complete. Eventually the door did open. I ran over hugging the person who opened the door, expecting it to be Mother. But when I touched the body, smelt the smell, I knew something was wrong. A strong hand pulled me away by the shirt collar, I looked up to see who the door opener was. It was a man, whose beard was like a mask. The moment he grabbed me by the collar, I broke. Pigtails fell onto the ground, followed by arms; every cell on my skin started falling off, the body under the skin turned into ash. Just like breaking a porcelain doll or destroying a sand castle. My body became a bunch of soot and fake limbs roughly put together, forming an upside down cone. But I did not break, my body was complete. I was wholly taken to the nurturing facilities. Sitting on the bed there, thinking of the remnants back home, I looked down onto my body. Perfectly fine, how strange.” 

Katharine looked down at her body. “Perhaps she went into Miniluv, my mother. I don’t know what she did, to be vaporized. After I became an adult, I searched for her. But she seemed to have never existed, no evidence of existence. Except for this.” She took out a button from her pocket.

Julia looked at Katharine’s button in her palm. Just a regular brown coat button, can’t get more common than this.

“The button on her cardigan sweater. When she disappeared, I clutched her clothes and sat on the the floor. When I found that a button had broke, I pulled it off, and put it into my pocket. I brought this button away from our house, I brought this button into adulthood. Just us left, me and this button, like feathers from leaving birds, like breadcrumbs thrown on the mountain path. Absent-minded evidence. Now, you may remember I said I didn’t remember the exact ordering of my memories.”

“Indeed.”

“Perhaps, my mother and I sitting side by side, looking outside the window, eating chocolate, this scene might have happened after she disappeared, instead of before she disappeared. They might have deleted her existence, but she came back, she still accompanied me.”

“Not really possible. However, me going into Miniluv was more or less due to chocolate as well.” 

Julia said. “I’m listening.” Katharine lit another cigarette.

“More or less related to chocolate, and a room and a man. Back then, I loved that man, I was sure of it. Later on, after going into Miniluv, I stopped loving him. They taught us to love Big Brother. Of course, loving Big Brother and loving a person isn’t exactly the same thing, it’s a different kind of love, loving Big Brother is……...the loving Big Brother kinda love. Do you get it?” 

“Not really. But I can imagine. Regardless they’re two different kinds of love, I get that.” 

“The bullet entered my skull, and got me here. In this kind of place, didn’t take me long to feel that I no longer loved Big Brother. Love, no love. Assuming I would betray everyone, I betrayed Winston, and also betrayed Big Brother.”

“Winston?” 

“The man I once loved.” Julia answered.

“Winston...Winston...I thought of a name, Winston Smith.”

“Oh….is this a coincidence? I think Winston said that his wife was named Katharine.”

“Winston Smith of Minitrue?” Katharine asked. 

“Exactly, him.”

Katharine sucked in a deep breath, lighting up the cigarette head.

“Couldn’t tell, you don’t look like his wife at all.” Julia said. Once the words left the mouth, she felt that this description was inadequate, and decided to add on, “You weren’t the same as his description of you, not exactly the same as what I had imagined either.”

“In what sense?”

“He said you were a human recorder. Though, hearing you speak, the content of said recording is quite vivid. I imagined Winston’s wife would be….a chair with the face of a rocking horse hanging off of it. Don’t ask me why.”

“I’m not asking. I knew Winston hated me to some degree.” Katharine didn’t look at Julia, only the cigarette in her own hand. 

“How did you know?” Julia cocked her head looking at Katharine. 

“I felt it. Hostility can be easily felt. I felt that he hated and despised me. To be fair, he hated most women, considering my gender, his attitude towards me wasn’t surprising. When we first got married, I felt that he merely didn’t like me, after a while this dislike had escalated to hate. I don’t know why, his hate towards me seemed to endlessly accumulate. In some moments, I felt that he hated so much, he wanted to kill me.” Katharine continued to stare at the cigarette in her hand, “I remember once, after we got married for three or four months, during a mass hike, we got lost and strayed from the others. Probably a wrong turn or something, we walked to the edge of some aluminum mine. At that time it was just us two, with the cliff next to us and no one else. WInston already hated me, and add that to the fact that he was at a perfect place and time to kill, who knows what could’ve happened. I was anxious and scared, wanted to return to return via the original route, back to the group where others are present, so that he didn’t dare to hurt me. But Winston didn’t let me go, he took me, pointed at the flowers growing on the cliff for me to see. I had no choice but to stand on the edge of the cliff, the two reddish yellow flowers appeared blurry to the eyes. Winston’s hand on my waist, that was clear. I could feel the energy in his hand, ready to burst. He wanted to push me off the cliff, I thought at the time, my body went stiff. No one, no birds’ chirps, no wind, the leaves remain stationary. Sunlight shines down, sweat drops crawl down my face slowly. I thought he was gonna push me off the cliff then. But the arm strength touching my body disappeared, he retracted his hand. I think I got it wrong, he never had the idea to kill me. He hated me, but not to the point where he wants me dead. Just that when I was standing on the edge of the cliff, I had some inexplicable thought that he would give me a push.”

“Oh, at that time, he had the slightest idea to push you. But in the end he didn’t kill you.” Julia explained, “speaking of, he had actually wanted to kill me too. First rape, then kill. In the end he didn’t kill me either.” 

“Winston wanted to kill you too?” Katharine no longer stared at the cigarette, and raised her head to look at Julia. 

“That’s right.”

“Because you no longer loved him, so he wanted to kill you?” Katharine was very confused. 

“No. It was before that. Before we fell in love.”

“Was it the Thought Police that told you he wanted to kill you, so as to let you no longer love him?” Still confused.

“Noo. Winston told me that himself. He told me that when we first got together, it was afterwards that we really fell in love.” 

“Wait, you knew he wanted to rape and kill you, but you still loved him?” 

“Yeah.” Julia answered directly.

“How does one love a person who wanted to rape and kill themselves?!”

“Why isn’t that possible. He wanted to kill me because he thought I would never get in bed with him. In the end, I did get in bed with him. So he didn’t want to kill me anymore, and even fell in love with me, I also fell in love with him. I don’t see any problem with this.” Julia shrugged.

“I can’t wrap my head around this.”

“You don’t need to. Understanding things is annoying. Trying to understand something only ends up with a bunch of misunderstandings.” Julia pursed her lips, “How about talking about accept or not accept. If you’re willing to accept it, accept it; if you’re not willing to accept it, I can leave.” 

“Sure, I can accept it. You got more chocolate?” Katharine put another cigarette out. Julia pulled out her bar of chocolate, it had already magically recovered to form a full bar. 

“Winston hated you, you knew he hated you too. Then why did you two get married?” Julia asked while cracking off a piece of chocolate. 

“I don’t know why he decided to get married. Maybe, because the other male party members also got married, so Winston thought he himself should get married too; Perhaps, Winston wanted to find a stable sex partner.” Katharine put the chocolate in her mouth.

“Why with you?” 

“Winston hated women, he disliked almost all women. He randomly picked from a bunch of creatures that he disliked, and it happened to be me. As for if he chose by drawing lots or tossing a coin, you’ve gotta ask him.” 

“The marriage wasn’t decided by him alone, you agreed to get married with him. You knew Winston hated you, then why did you agree to marry him?” Julia continued to dwell on Winston and Katharine’s marriage. 

“Because he worked at Minitrue. I thought he would notice the topic that I was concerned with - destroying history, making someone having never existed before. But we weren’t able to talk about this topic, since telescreens were everywhere. Another reason we got married was that I wanted kids. In truth, they are the same reason.”

“The responsibility towards the Party?”

“The responsibility towards the Party. The responsibility towards the Party. Of course this wasn’t the reason I wanted kids. Instead that was the only possible saying. Out of all of the objectives in bearing kids, ‘responsibility towards the Party’ was the only proper one, the other ones were treated as improper and harmful towards society. I doubt most mothers really believe such an objective as ‘responsibility towards the Party’. Of course, to protect herself and her children, she would say bearing a child was because of the responsibility. But in human nature, continuation of the blood line and maternity are hard to remove, just like how sexuality is hard to completely suppress. Sexuality and continuation of bloodline are actually two displays of the same thing. If I were to honestly express my reasoning for wanting kids, I would be revealed to the Thought Police.”

“You didn’t need to hide it from Winston. He isn’t a goodthinker, he wouldn’t rat you out.”

“There are telescreens at home, I couldn’t find a place to speak without fear. Furthermore, I couldn’t trust Winston either. Ratting me out or not doesn't have anything to do with whether he is orthodox or not. Those who rat others out aren’t always orthodox. And it’s not just orthodox people who rat others out either. One man exposing another, could just be because he hates that person, he wants to damage him, he wants to kill him. Winston despises me, he’s wanted to kill me before. He wasn’t able to push me off, but he could probably say a few words and send me to my demise. Though, speaking of, Winston was extremely orthodox in sexual performance.” 

“That’s not possible!” Julia cried. 

“In Ingsoc’s lust elimination policy, the lust elimination work towards married female party members is usually done by male party members.Through not allowing females experience any pleasure during sex, and perhaps even pain, it achieves the goal of removing their sexual desire. Winston was a loyal executor, being in bed with him felt like a sentence. It didn’t even come close to me doing it to myself.” saying this, Katharine lit up a third cigarette. 

“He…...lacked a bit of practice, and maybe…...a little…..only caring about his own satisfaction. Though, us two doing it felt pretty good. Is it perhaps your body that is rather special?”

“Maybe. Another possible reason was that, my feelings affected my body’s sensations. From the first time we met, he had always hated and despised me. He managed to hate and despise women, and want to have sex with them at the same time. Winston wasn’t able to hide his hate towards me, I even felt it during the sex. But having sex with someone who hates and despises me, it’s not possible for me to feel pleasant. He couldn’t hide his hate towards me, and I’m afraid I couldn’t hide my distaste towards him. If he hadn’t hated me as much, perhaps it would’ve felt better.” Katharine held a cold expression, and stared at the cigarette in her hand. 

“But for begetting a child, you had to have sex with him.” 

“Yes.” 

“I wanna ask one thing, why did you want to beget a child? And what is the unorthodox reason?”

“Because….selfishness. I wanted to keep evidence. A child would be proof that I once existed, once lived. Even if I was killed, even if I became an unperson, even if all records regarding me were destroyed, even if everyone’s memory of me was deleted, I still remain in my child’s body. She’s standing there, I flow inside her blood, evidence of my existence is written in her blood.”

“You don’t need to get married to do this. Artificial insemination could bear you a child too.” Julia threw her cigarette away.

“Artificial insemination was only advertised, it never really succeeded. I heard of it when planning my pregnancy. No matter what though, using children as a proof of existence is too selfish of a reason. No child is willing to be brought to this world for this selfish reason.” 

“I don’t care for the reason of making me. Since I’ve already been born, then don’t think of a reason. To find something, someone, some object that I like, have a bit of fun.“ This fun included chocolate; Julia broke off a piece for herself, and put it into her mouth.

“I care. While I was trying to get pregnant, I was always thinking: how would it be like to be pregnant? A life is born from inside the body, this is mankind’s most important, most powerful, and also the most mysterious, most vague and contradictory ceremony, creating complicated emotions not even the main person could not explain or even detect. Fear, expectance, hopelessness, happiness, these words sound so simple it’s laughable. A life hidden in the stomach, a mystery. Like the gold at the bottom of the lake, jewels in the rock. Strong winds tear off branches, blow leaves away, but nothing can be seen on the lake surface, nothing can be seen on the rock surface either. I can cover all of my individuality, and not let anyone see. Facing telescreens, put up the facade of orthodoxy, but what I’m thinking of is the child hidden in my body. I would try to feel her heartbeat, we would have some hidden connection. I would love her. This is the most terrifying part, love is a lie. At least half a lie, which has no difference with a whole lie anyway. Hidden under love is merely my selfishness. Now, everything’s over. I have no child, and will never be able to have one. This could perhaps be a good thing though. There wouldn’t be a child born due to my selfish reason, there wouldn’t be a child being tortured because of my selfish motive. Perhaps this would be better for her, this child that never existed.” 

“Incomprehensible. I wouldn’t want to have a child. Growing in my body, it would be a tumor. Or some alien forcibly shoved in there. Taking my nutrients, growing a head, counting the days to leave me. After it crawls out, it lies on my back, pulling me, sucking my energy. Children are like this.”

“Now it’s my turn to say: If you’re willing to accept it, then accept it; if you’re not willing to accept it, I can leave.” said Katharine. 

“I reckon we can accept each other.” said Julia. 

“You want another cig?” Katharine pulled out her cigarette box. 

“Yeah.” 

Katharine pulled one out and handed it to Julia, and lit a match. “When I was planning to have kids, I was always thinking about those telescreens.”

“Well hey, there’s no telescreens here. Though there aren’t any sunlight, ostriches or eucalyptus bushes either.” Julia puffed on the cigarette. “The sheer number of telescreens seemed suspicious. I know that inner party members can turn them off, they are trusted, or you could even say that they’re the brains of Big Brother. Outer party members are almost monitored by telescreens at every moment, even a slight change in facial expression would be noticed. Monitoring to such a precise degree, and there aren’t robotic babies…..” 

“Robotic babies? What does that mean?”

“No idea. That phrase slipped out of my mouth. I don’t know what it means either, probably said it wrong. What I wanted to say, was that this omnipresent monitoring is operated by humans. Whether any twitches in facial muscles and any changes in the eyes appear orthodox, or is committing thinkcrimes or not, it’s all determined by humans. Behind every telescreen, there is one or even multiple Thought Police undergoing monitoring. They probably have absolute trust, and are probably all inner party members.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“The number of inner party members are far larger than the number of outer party members being monitored, that is what I was gonna say. Every outer party member has telescreens at homes, their workplaces have telescreens, the cafeterias have telescreens; they’re everywhere. Behind every telescreen, there are inner party members undergoing monitoring, and this monitoring is almost going for the whole day, the precision mandated by the monitoring definitely requires shifts, two shifts or three. And interrogators! Altering the mind of thoughtcriminals takes massive amounts of time and manpower, they definitely need massive amounts of interrogators. The number of inner party members controlling the outer party members definitely exceeds the number of outer party members being controlled.”

“Perhaps so. Has this got to do with anything?”

“If Ingsoc is the party in power, the public is the one being ruled. Ingsoc’s power comes from its rule over the large masses. Then why not cancel outer party members, and let trustworthy inner party members put down their monitoring work, go onto the job position of outer party member? Under this arrangement, wouldn’t the operation of the rule machine be more simple and efficient?” 

“Big Brother wasn’t so smart this time, eh?”

“Or, nothing has anything to do with the people, Big Brother might have no interest in them. Big Brother absorbs his endless power not from the people; they aren’t Big Brother’s power extraction mine. The power Big Brother is staring at originates from another place, which is why so many telescreens are used to monitor them, so many interrogators are used to “mine” them. The ruler and the ruled are both in Ingsoc, the inner party members are the rules, the monitors, the controllers, the abusers; outer party members are the ruled, the monitored, the controlled abused. Proletariats are outside of the game, purely as filler. The whole Ingsoc is a power self-sustaining machine, and the outer party members are the fuel that release power once burnt. Imagine a room with a closed door, inside is an abuser and an abused person, inner party members to outer party members, that’s what Ingsoc is. The power here is just through feeling the power of torturing victims.”

“Huh, similar to the power felt when beating a woman, tying her up naked, harassing her, and finally killing her with a bow and arrow? The power from torturing her, controlling her, stepping on her determination, and finally using her body as a vessel for carrying your thoughts?”

“Big Brother does it more thoroughly and wickedly. Monitoring could already let the monitored feel the power, so they start from monitoring and tracking them. Then the victim is put into a space designated by him, controlling and torturing the victim, to develop Stockholm Syndrome, distorting the mind of the victim, and let the victim spontaneously love him. At this point, he’s almost felt all of the power, just missing the last drop: killing the victim who loves him. A collectivized power-based-motive serial killer.” 

“Oh.” after a pause, Julia said, “Winston and I were victims.”

“All outer party members are victims. Big Brother, or core party members rather, can always find some reasons to torture them. Core party members allow outer party members to exist is just for there to have people to torture, a mining well for capturing their rights. I only missed Miniluv because the bomb came first.”

“But…...umm, this bunch of imaginary evidence is…...the number of telescreens?” Julia asked. 

Katharine nodded, flicking off the ash. 

“I had a feeling,” Julia started saying, “there aren’t any people behind the telescreens, there aren’t even any people monitoring. Do you feel that way?”

“You mean, machines are doing the monitoring?” Katharine asked. 

“No, no. There’s no anything doing the monitoring, no one’s monitoring, and nothing else. There aren’t anyone looking at our movements, expressions, eyes or whatever.” 

“But, I’ve heard in Miniluv they can view every movement from outer party members as if they were fingers, not even letting an eye twitch or a thought free.”

“That’s the problem, thoughts. When you’re monitoring, you can see their expressions, and even if you could see their eye motions, it wouldn’t be too clear. You can’t see stuff like thoughts. Speculating a thought just from a few blurred eye motions, you’d most likely get it wrong.” 

“Please continue.” Katharine said. 

“I like to think of it the simple way. Eye motions, expressions, and thoughts, were prearranged. Someone arranged me. Movements, contraction and dilation of muscles, change of eyes, each sentence, and each thought in my heart, was arranged by someone. Following the script, it was already practiced. Taking every arranged action and thought, and mark it on a piece of paper. And then they get the dudes at Miniluv, and stuff the post-its recording my actions and thoughts into their brains. According to the arrangements, I fall in love with Winston. According to the arrangements, I hand him a slip of paper. In Miniluv, they give me that slip of paper to read, which entails every bit of my thoughts. They have that slip of paper, they know my thoughts, not because they are monitoring me, but because whoever arranged me also arranged them, dumping me, as if I were a thought, into their brains, then they’ll know what I’m thinking; arranging to put that slip of paper into their hands, was also prearranged.” 

“Seems to make sense. Looking at it like this, we’re all just some puppets, inside a ridiculous play where people are just endlessly beaten up with sticks. Or, characters in a horror novel.” said Catharine with a sullen face. 

“There is this possibility, isn’t there?”

“Yes. But, if we’re considering it like this, I’d think my part in the play would’ve ended very early on. Why am I still acting now? And why was I put in this dark place?” 

“Lemme think. When I was working in pornosec, there was this girl, who loved to secretly read these erotic books, and then rewrite them. SHe changed all the females in the book to males, and changed “she” to “he”, changing “A Night in the Girls’ School” to “A Night in the Boys’ School”. Look, when we just started, we were in “A Night in the Girls’ School”, and now, we’re in “A Night in the Boys’ School”. Do you understand what that means? Of course, not saying we’re in an erotic book or anything.”

“I just about get it, our world, our lives, my thoughts, our personalities, our existence, is just an imaginary story. And now, we’re pulled into this lie that was distorted from this imaginary story.” Katharine looked down on herself (literally), “I guess this could explain my sudden change in personality.”

“I haven’t changed.”

“You just haven’t gone and felt.”

“Either my personality changed, or it didn’t. Why does that matter? I feel that I’m still myself, liking the things that I like.”

“I don’t know what you used to love.”

“Chocolate! I still like it now.” Julia said briskly, “Being in a story isn’t a problem, being controlled isn’t a barrier, no problem. Finding something interesting to do is the real deal.” 

“Can I kill that dude who’s distorting the imaginary stories into lies?” Katharine roughly put out her cigarette.

“Not feasible. Perhaps he even arranged for you to say this sentence.” 

“Dammit.” Katharine gritted her teeth. 

“We can’t control ourselves, we can’t think. We’ve never lived, the past was fabricated and the future doesn’t exist. But why does that matter? All I need to know is how to be happy and how not to be happy. We’ve gotta find something to do in this kinda places. Especially interesting and pleasing things.” Julia said, “You know, a spark in the dark feels warmer than the sun in the summer.” 

Julia’s words calmed Katharine down, like a tide ebbing. Right now she only feels tired and mild. “Yeah. I feel the warmth.” She gave it a thought, “and maybe, even some happiness. I’ve never felt like this, this happiness, when conversing.” When she said “happiness”, she actually felt it, a mild and gentle pleasantness.

“There’s also other things that can make one happy, no one said lips were just for talking.” Julia said, taking off the cigarette suspended between the lips, and held it with two fingers. She didn’t hold it properly, and tobacco flakes fell because the cigarette was vertical. But Julia didn’t even notice, because she’s already kissing Katharine’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> (what kind of world has undepletable chocolate and cigarettes, AND apparently zero health risks? sign me up!)
> 
> (1)Samson, eating sausages and making tea are a reference to Jeanette Winterson's book "Lighthousekeeping", in which Silver and Pew do these things. hydrviolence takes that scene and puts it into this story as some sort of easter egg, using Silver and Pew's memories as Katharine's.


End file.
